1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to methods and devices used for healing wounds caused by injury or surgery, and more specifically to methods and devices for facilitating the healing of open wounds such as abdominal wounds that benefit from temporary closure and later reopening before final closure.
2. Description of Related Art
Significant advances have been made in preventing postoperative infections. Still, post operative treatment of patients receiving many types of invasive surgeries, especially those involving the abdominal cavity, is enhanced by the ability to re-enter the cavity in order to address peritonitis and other infections that often inhibit the final healing of the wound and the internal organs. While the optimum outcome is no post-operative infections or other complications whatsoever, such complications occur frequently. Their occurrence has lead to the now common practice of establishing a temporary wound closure and, later, re-entering the wound for the purposes of cleansing the abdominal cavity, and for treating such complications, which must be treated before final, or definitive, closure.
The background description in U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,683 issued to Neumann et al., entitled Surgical Closure, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, reviews various complications associated with abdominal surgery and the process of post-operative cleansing of the abdominal cavity. Neumann et al. teaches a somewhat complex solution to establishing a re-enterable wound closure, namely, a flexible fabric or plate like securing device that covers the wound, provides a suction tube, and extends outward into a larger, sealable tube that may be re-entered as needed before final closure.
Many other techniques for post-operative temporary wall closure after abdominal surgery have been described. Studying these techniques enables the establishment for objective criteria by which to judge the suitability of various proposed temporary closure modalities.
A suitable temporary closure should be simple, easy to apply, effective in containing the abdominal contents, minimally interfere with the abdominal organs and surrounding tissue, minimally, if at all, promote the formation of adhesions and fistula, and promote process towards definitive closure.
A problem common to many existing methods of temporary wound closure is adhesion formation between the tissue and the material in contact with the wound. Such adhesions are undesirable, and complicate the process of preparing the wound site for final closure. Placing porous materials such as gauze, surgical towels and even open cell foam, in direct contact with the open wound site, further complicates final closure by providing increased surface area that promotes adhesion formation, thereby making removal of this material even more difficult.
Maintaining negative pressure on a wound site without creating conditions that make the removal of the temporary wound covering material more difficult, is manifestly beneficial. A desirable layered wound covering permits both the application of negative pressure and the resultant removal of exuded fluids. Such a covering is re-enterable for the purpose of cleansing the wound without trauma to the wound site. Such a wound covering would be most advantageous for open abdomen surgical wounds. These devices and techniques could also be used on other types of open wounds that present a difficult healing process.
The need for a wound covering, and therapeutic treatment system that allows the application of therapeutic negative pressure without causing increased adverse side effects to the open wound site is apparent. Presently, no such wound covering, or treatment system is known to exist. It is towards the filling of this need that the present invention is directed.